This edited collection sets forth a new understanding of aesthetic-moral judgment organized around three key concepts: pleasure, reflection, and accountability. The overarching theme is that art is not merely a representation or expression like any other, but that it promotes shared moral understanding and helps us engage in meaning-making. This volume offers an alternative to brain-centric and realist approaches to aesthetics. It features original essays from a number of leading philosophers of art, aesthetics, ethics, and perception, including Elizabeth Burns Coleman, Garrett Cullity, Cynthia A. Freeland, Ivan Gaskell, Paul Guyer, Jane Kneller, Keith Lehrer, Mohan Matthen, Jennifer A. McMahon, Bence Nanay, Nancy Sherman, and Robert Sinnerbrink. Part I of the book analyses the elements of aesthetic experience—pleasure, preference, and imagination—with the individual conceived as part of a particular cultural context and network of other minds. The chapters in Part II explain how it is possible for cultural learning to impact these elements through consensus building, an impulse to objectivity, emotional expression, and reflection. Finally, the chapters in Part III converge on the role of dissonance, difference, and diversity in promoting cultural understanding and advancement. Social Aesthetics and Moral Judgment will appeal to philosophers of art and aesthetics, as well as scholars in other disciplines interested in issues related to art and cultural exchange.

Across these essays Arnold Berleant demonstrates how aesthetic values and theory can be used to reappraise our social practices. He tackles issues within the built environment, everyday life, and politics, breaking down the dichotomy between the natural and the human. His work represents a fresh approach to traditional philosophical questions in not only ethics, but in metaphysics, truth, meaning, psychology, phenomenology, and social and moral philosophy. Topics covered include the cultural aesthetics of environment, ecological aesthetics, the aesthetics of terrorism, and the subversion of beauty. The corruption of taste by the forces of commercial interests as well as how aesthetics can advance our understanding of violence are also considered. Berleant's exploration is supported by his analysis of 19th-century art to the present day, starting with impressionism through to postmodernism and contemporary artistic interventions. By critically examining the field in this way and casting new light on social understanding and practice, this collection makes a substantive contribution in identifying and clarifying central human issues, guided by an understanding of aesthetic engagement as a powerful tool for social critique.

This is a collection of four essays on aesthetic, ethical, and political issues by Dieter Henrich, the preeminent Kant scholar in Germany today. Although his interests have ranged widely, he is perhaps best known for rekindling interest in the great classical German tradition from Kant to Hegel. The first essay summarizes Henrich's research into the development of the Kant's moral philosophy, focusing on the architecture of the third Critique. Of special interest in this essay is Henrich's intriguing and wholly new account of the relations between Kant and Rousseau. In the second essay, Henrich analyzes the interrelations between Kant's aesthetics and his cognitive theories. His third essay argues that the justification of the claim that human rights are universally valid requires reference to a moral image of the world. To employ Kant's notion of a moral image of the world without ignoring the insights and experience of this century requires drastic changes in the content of such an image. Finally, in Henrich's ambitious concluding essay, the author compares the development of the political process of the French Revolution and the course of classical German philosophy, raise the general question of the relation between political processes and theorizing, and argues that both the project of political liberty set in motion by the French Revolution, and the projects of classical German philosophy remain incomplete.

Aesthetic and moral value are often seen to go hand in hand. They do so not only practically, such as in our everyday assessments of artworks that raise moral questions, but also theoretically, such as in Kant's theory that beauty is the symbol of morality. Some philosophers have argued that it is in the relation between aesthetic and moral value that the key to an adequate understanding of either notion lies. But difficult questions abound. Must a work of art be morally admirable in order to be aesthetically valuable? How, if at all, do our moral values shape our aesthetic judgements - and vice versa? Aesthetics and Morality is a stimulating and insightful inquiry into precisely this set of questions. Elisabeth Schellekens explores the main ideas and debates at the intersection of aesthetics and moral philosophy. She invites readers to reflect on the nature of beauty, art and morality, and provides the philosophical knowledge to render such reflection more rigorous. This original, inspiring and entertaining book sheds valuable new light on a notably complex and challenging area of thought.

Kant’s Critique of Judgment represents one of the most important texts in modern philosophy. However, while its importance for 19th-century philosophy has been widely acknowledged, scholars have often overlooked its far-reaching influence on 20th-century thought. This book aims to account for the various interpretations of Kant’s notion of aesthetic judgment formulated in the last century. The book approaches the subject matter from both a historical and a theoretical point of view and in relation to different cultural contexts, also exploring in an unprecedented way its influence on some very up-to-date philosophical developments and trends. It represents the first choral and comprehensive study on this missing piece in the history of modern and contemporary philosophy, capable of cutting in a unique way across different traditions, movements and geographical areas. All main themes of Kant’s aesthetics are investigated in this book, while at the same time showing how they have been interpreted in very different ways in the 20th century. With contributions by Alessandro Bertinetto, Patrice Canivez, Dario Cecchi, Diarmuid Costello, Nicola Emery, Serena Feloj, Günter Figal, Tom Huhn, Hans-Peter Krüger, Thomas W. Leddy, Stefano Marino, Claudio Paolucci, Anne Sauvagnargues, Dennis J. Schmidt, Arno Schubbach, Scott R. Stroud, Thomas Teufel, and Pietro Terzi.

Across these essays Arnold Berleant demonstrates how aesthetic values and theory can be used to reappraise our social practices. He tackles issues within the built environment, everyday life, and politics, breaking down the dichotomy between the natural and the human. His work represents a fresh approach to traditional philosophical questions in not only ethics, but in metaphysics, truth, meaning, psychology, phenomenology, and social and moral philosophy. Topics covered include the cultural aesthetics of environment, ecological aesthetics, the aesthetics of terrorism, and the subversion of beauty. The corruption of taste by the forces of commercial interests as well as how aesthetics can advance our understanding of violence are also considered. Berleant's exploration is supported by his analysis of 19th-century art to the present day, starting with impressionism through to postmodernism and contemporary artistic interventions. By critically examining the field in this way and casting new light on social understanding and practice, this collection makes a substantive contribution in identifying and clarifying central human issues, guided by an understanding of aesthetic engagement as a powerful tool for social critique.

Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues.